


Caught in Amber

by holy_milk



Series: prompt memes/requests [8]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Good Dad Finwe, Marriage Proposal, feanor and nerdanel being nerds together, feanor fails at romance spectacularly, feanor nails romance, those are not mutually exclusive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:54:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23431240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holy_milk/pseuds/holy_milk
Summary: One time when Feanor's attempt to propose to Nerdanel failed miserably.And one time it didn't.
Relationships: Fëanor | Curufinwë/Nerdanel
Series: prompt memes/requests [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1530497
Comments: 12
Kudos: 54





	Caught in Amber

**Author's Note:**

> For bird-with-glasses, who requested a snippet of Feanor's proposal to Nerdanel. Obviously, I don't know what a snippet is.
> 
> Feanor is 16-ish (in human years) at the beginning of the fic and 18-ish at the end. Nerdanel is roughly the same age.

It was not at all unusual for Prince Fëanáro to lock himself in his chamber for days, refusing to participate in daily family gatherings and meals. However, there were usually noises coming from behind his door – noises of frustration or joy depending on how his current project was going. That’s how everybody knew he was still alive and hadn’t died from either starvation or exertion.

It was different this time. Everything was silent in Fëanáro’s wing of the palace, and Finwë was beginning to get worried for his firstborn’s well-being. So, when he knocked on Fëanáro’s door and heard no answer, he decided to come in anyway.

What struck him immediately was the spotless study. The windows overlooking the royal garden had been washed so clean it almost seemed as if there were no glass in them at all, and all of Fëanáro’s books, scrolls and papers were either meticulously arranged on bookshelves or lay in neat piles on his desk.

There was no sign of Fëanáro in the study, so Finwë went further to his bedroom.

Fëanáro was lying on the bed, sprawled on his back and staring at the high celling, and he only slightly stirred at the sound of his father coming in. He raised his head above the pillow, his eyes lighting up for a fleeting moment, and then dropped it back with a sigh of disappointment. Finwë tried very hard not to feel offended by that.

“Dear, you look horrible,” he said, crossing over to the bed and pulling up a chair to sit in. “What happened?”

“I’m fine,” Fëanáro mumbled.

Finwë leaned in to tuck a stray strand of hair behind his son’s ear. His hair definitely needed washing.

“I can see you’re not,” he said gently. “What’s the matter? You know you can tell me.”

Fëanáro loudly sucked in a breath, and there was now a telltale watery glint in his eyes. Finwë patiently waited for his son to open up.

“Nerdanel and I are over,” he said abruptly, and Finwë let out a small gasp despite himself.

“How—” it was impossible to imagine. Everyone knew Prince Fëanáro and Nerdanel were a perfect couple: both of them so young, so eager to learn and explore, so full of love. Finwë had started planning their wedding years ago – in secret, because he didn’t want to push his son before his was fully ready.

Just what was he supposed to do with all the gifts for the bride he had already commissioned?

Fëanáro’s face darkened.

“I took her out to Alqualondë last week. I told her we would go swimming in a boat and then have romantic dinner on the shore under the stars. I had two miles of shore line covered in rose petals and a whole choir of best Lindar minstrels singing for us…” Fëanáro trailed off to catch his breath. His voice sounded calm, but his cheeks were growing red with emotion. “I was going to propose to her at the end of the day.”

“Oh,” Finwë said as Fëanáro quickly wiped at his eyes. “And she—”

“She said rose petals were a waste of perfectly fine flowers, and she asked if I thought my royal status made it acceptable for me to keep thirty young Lindar men and women away from their loved ones on such a nice evening, just to entertain the two of us. She also got seasick on the boat,” Fëanáro’s voice finally broke, and he fell silent.

Finwë blinked.

“So… when you say ‘Nerdanel and I are over’, what you mean is… she didn’t like one date you took her to?”

Fëanáro raised his head, glaring at him with indignation.

“I was going to propose to her!” he repeated perhaps a bit more dramatically than was needed. “I worked so hard, I followed _every instruction_ — and if I can’t even do this one thing right, then what’s the point—”

“Darling,” Finwë interrupted him gently, “what instructions are you talking about?”

Fëanáro suddenly went red.

“I… I asked her mother how to propose,” he murmured, embarrassed. He shot his father a sideways glance. “What? I had to ask _someone_. It’s not like I’ve ever done this before, and they never go into details in all those books.”

Finwë hid his face in his hands. He was suddenly reminded of how awfully young his eldest son still was, and it made his heart melt and break at the same time.

He was also a bit hurt that Mahtan’s wife had apparently known about Fëanáro’s plans for quite some time, while he remained absolutely oblivious.

“Fëanáro, dear,” he said at last, “Lóteriel obviously made you plan a proposal _she_ would’ve wanted. Sure, they are mother and daughter, but it doesn’t mean their tastes will always be the same.”

Fëanáro sat up, pulling his knees to his chest, and hang his head, groaning quietly. Finwë slid onto the bed by his side and wrapped an arm around his son’s shoulders.

“She will never want to see me again,” Fëanáro muttered, his voice muffled and hoarse, and Finwë let out a sigh of fond exasperation.

“You’re being too dramatic,” he said and nodded when Fëanáro looked up at him with an incredulous expression. “Yes, Curvo, you are. You love her, she loves you. One failed attempt at proposal isn’t going to change that. Hasn’t she written to you since then, asking why you disappeared all of a sudden?”

“She has,” Fëanáro admitted. “Although I don’t know what exactly. I haven’t opened them.”

He pointed at the pile of envelopes on his bedside table, all signed in Nerdanel’s neat handwriting. The pile was quite big.

“See? Instead of brooding alone in your room, why don’t you go and talk to her?”

Fëanáro scrunched up his face at the word ‘talk’, but then a new thoughtful expression came over his face. He nodded slowly, and Finwë pressed a light kiss to his temple.

“Father?” Fëanáro called uncertainly some time later.

“Yes?”

“How did you propose to Mother?”

Finwë was silent for a moment, recalling that day – even though less than two centuries had passed since then, it felt so distant now. All memories of Miriel did.

“We were walking in a forest together – the birch grove outside of Tirion, I used to take you there when you were little. Do you remember?” Fëanáro nodded quietly. “I felt so happy then, happier than I’d ever been before, and I thought your mother looked like a young birch tree herself, with leaves and branches casting shadows on her white dress and hair. And it was at that moment that I realized I truly loved her and I wanted her to be mine forever. And then… it felt natural to say so out loud. So I did.”

The image of the birch grove was blurry in his mind, but he could still see Miriel clearly amidst the green and white, laughing as she brought his hand to her lips.

He pulled Fëanáro closer and kissed his face again before leaving.

* * *

They found a small shady place on the beach, just underneath a high rocky cliff, to take a short break from their scavenger hunt and eat. They put all the pieces of amber they had found between them, and Nerdanel started counting them while Fëanáro busied himself with taking out bread and cheese.

“This one has a whole grasshopper in it!” she exclaimed excitedly, holding one of the pieces up.

“You can keep it,” Fëanáro said graciously. He didn’t like bugs.

“Thank you,” Nerdanel replied and squinted at the rest of their haul. “I’ll find the most boring one and put it in your pile; I know you love it.”

“There’s nothing ‘boring’ about pure amber,” he made a half-hearted to argue. Nerdanel gave him a smile that fell just short of being condescending.

When she was done some minutes later, they sat together on the sand and ate in companionable silence, watching rainbows shimmer where waves broke in showers of tiny droplets against the rocks. The warm day and the long walk made them drowsy, and soon Nerdanel’s red head was on Fëanáro’s shoulder.

He took one of the bigger amber pieces in hand, tracing the smooth surface with his fingers.

“Do you know what I need the purest of amber for?” he asked.

She thought about it for a moment.

“No. It makes no sense. You look for amber _because_ there are interesting things caught in it.”

He chewed his lip.

“But if I wanted to cut someone’s face out of amber, I would need a pure piece, otherwise I’d end up with a spider in their mouth.”

Nerdanel laughed. Then she grew quiet.

“Whose face are we talking about?”

“Yours.”

“What would you need my amber face for?”

“Because—” Fëanáro trailed off, trying to put what he thought in words. “Because sometimes, when we’re apart, it almost feels like my heart is going to break if I can’t see your face.”

He heard Nerdanel hold her breath and turned his head slightly to meet her eyes. He could see tiny droplets of amber in her irises.

“There are other ways to keep someone close,” she said, her voice very soft.

“There are,” he agreed. “And I want to explore them too — with you. But only if you want as well,” he added perhaps a bit too hastily, his nervousness betraying him at last.

Nerdanel didn’t notice, or she ignored it. She put her hand on his, locking their fingers together.

“I would love to,” she said.


End file.
